Magister
by LordImperator
Summary: When Lord Tzenaar of the Thousand Sons arrives at the world of Akkad VI, seeking the Death of Light, all hell breaks loose upon that world.
1. Chapter 1

**MAGISTER - PROLOGUE**

_He shall call forth the Death of Light, when dark portents wax nigh. Ten thousand sufferings he shall inflict, upon the world he grasps. Tearing from the Eye of Blood, he shall release his Legions. And a galaxy shall mourn._ – Eldar prophecy-stone found on Cadia, date of inscription estimated 65,000,000 years ago.

The scene inside the Inner Sanctum of High Magister Mordeghai was one of perfect calm, the High Magister floating in perfect serenity at the exact centre of the high chamber, its roof showing a beautiful map of the infinite vastness of interstellar space, countless wheeling stars and galaxies revolving around the cruciform figure of the Magister, a statement of egotism that was insulting to anybody with an inkling of what it implied.

Lord Tzenaar of the Thousand Sons was in turn tired of the ignorance that his master showed to outside affairs. The world (or the daemon-world) of Kitharat, where they were, did not revolve around the Magister, it revolved around the countless sorcerer-lords that served him, and in turn served the dreaded Ahriman.

He kneeled in obeisance, before the High Magister, knowing that Mordeghai would strike him down if he so much as whispered before him.

'YES,' Mordeghai stated. 'YOU MAY SPEAK.'

'Yes, Lord,' Tzenaar uttered. 'There is something upon the world of Akkad VI, something that we seek. It is called...the Death of Light.'

'Then...' Mordeghai declared. 'You are to take the Eye of Change, my flagship, to Babylon V.

***

Tzenaar removed his helmet in his quarters aboard the Eye of Change, perfect calm on the outside, filled with rage and spite within. Prospero, home-world of the Thousand Sons, had been razed by the Space Wolves ten thousand years (in mortal time) ago, but it felt like mere centuries. What he had in his quarters was the meagre number of books he had managed to preserve, tiny when compared with the High Magister's Grand Librarium. The tomes spoke of sorcery and psychic energies, of the many ways to harness Warp energies and control them. There was a time when he believed that what he had done was for the good of mankind.

That time had ended with the false Emperor's, the corpse-god's betrayal. He could remember the day when Prospero burnt. He had sworn a vow that day never to rest till Fenris, home-world of the Space Wolves, was naught but ash and dust. He could remember when the Imperium had been young and exuberant, but now, with its bloated and corrupt nature, destroying it felt almost like an act of kindness. He alone had been selected by the High Magister, as his successor in the case of death, Daemonhood, or the accursed state of Spawndom. But that did not matter. Soon he would be on Babylon V, and then he could work out his frustrations on something.

He had such interesting plans.


	2. Chapter 2: Accursed Cultists

**MAGISTER - CHAPTER 1**

Enforcer-Sergeant Marius kicked down the door, readying his autogun. The Syndicate needed to be taken out, and their extermination was the most pressing duty upon this blasted, accursed world.

The door fell to the floor of the decrepit manse, revealing a rotting, old foyer with aged hololith-portraits and crumbling, putrefying walls.

"We're in," Marius stated on the vox-bead, knowing that the rest of his squad would be following him into the old, decrepit mansion. The Enforcers had received a lead two weeks ago, telling them that this mansion was part of a major Syndicate plan. It didn't matter what it was, it needed to be taken out and annihilated.

Enforcers Augustus, Julius and Gaius followed, readying out the big guns. Several Enforcer gravcraft were also flying near it, missile pods and autocannons locked and loaded.

This was overkill.

That was when the enemy came.

Men in dark robes, with face-concealing hoods, they rushed towards the Enforcers, wielding mono-knives, auto-pistols and other crude weaponry.

The Enforcers fired at the cultists, autoguns and shotguns mowing them down, but before long they ran out of ammo, and had to resort to their pistols. Gaius used his flamer, making the dry wood of the ancient manse burn, setting the cultists alight.

Marius winced as he heard their screams of agony, their frantic flailing around and the crackle of hungry flames.

"I love the smell of Promethium in the morning," Gaius said, before setting his flamer to work again, setting the mansion alight with crackling, greedy flames.

More cultists came, ignoring the screams of their dying brethren, firing their auto-pistols and stabbing their mono-knives in a desperate attempt to take out the Enforcers.

Blood ran in rivers as the Enforcers fought a fighting retreat to the door of the manse, more cultists coming, continuing their insane, senseless attack, stepping over the bodies of their former allies (at least Marius supposed so) and wading through their blood without showing a trace of fear.

As Marius went out, he gave the order.

"Destroy the mansion!" he shouted to the comm-net, and the missiles started to rain down, explosions ripping the mansion apart in a burst of pyrotechnic madness.

The cultists were gone, and so was the mansion.

Marius was definitely requesting a reassignment to the desert after all this.

The Astropathic Choir's roof was a work of art.

It depicted the Emperor, blessed be his name, striking down a terrible, draconic serpent, against a background of saints and angels singing in celestial harmony. Below, the dark hordes of daemons were recoiling in agony and terror as they were cast down into the Seven Hells of Chaos.

7 times 7 were the number of the Astropaths in the Choir, who provided Babylon V with the means to communicate with the greater Imperium, sending and receiving countless numbers of messages.

The saboteur did not care about that, of course. He saw the ranks of Astropaths, attached to their feeding tubes and kept in their pods, as nothing more than an obstruction, an obstacle, to his master's goals.

And they were to be removed.

Slowly, carefully, he poured the vial's contents, a green liquid, into the central repository of water that the Astropaths drank from their tubes.

It spread, like a poison through the bloodstream, into the Astropaths' bodies, through the feeding tubes, and into their brains. The neurons ceased to fire, and the Astropaths died.

The computers monitoring their brain impulses flat-lined, the life-signs stopped. Nobody went into the Astropaths' chamber, save for the yearly inspections - as a result, no-one would enter for a year.

And that would be long enough to find the Death of Light.


	3. Chapter 3: Symphony of the Void

**MAGISTER – CHAPTER 2**

Tzenaar, Sorcerer-Lord of the Thousand Sons, considered the view as the _Eye of Change _flew through the Immaterium. Kitharat was an oddity in the Eye of Terror, a daemon-world where no prince among daemons ruled, where no being of the Empyrean commanded. Instead, it was commanded by the terrible will of High Magister Mordeghai, formerly Tribune Senioris to the Cyclopean Primarch himself, now a sorcerer of great and terrible power.

Speaking of daemons, as Tzenaar sat in the command throne aboard the mighty battleship that was the Eye of Change, Tzenaar commanded the many possessing spirits that dwelt within, allowing him to command the mighty vessel with nought but an act of will.

That was so _satisfying_, to command the adamantium, the plasteel and durachrome of the mighty battleship, commanding it without need of crew, save the soldiers and cultists aboard, ready to strike at the unsuspecting planet they were headed towards. Already, he could see a small pack of daemon-vessels join the great battleship, scarcely any larger than a Cobra-class destroyer yet terrible in their own way, drawn by the slaughter they could see in the future.

The spirits inhabiting the battleship were agitated, but Tzenaar was not surprised. They were carrion come to peck at the bodies of the dead and dying, not competitors for the kill. That reminded him, they were at the edge of the system now, and it was time to jump out of the Warp.

The _Eye of Change _emerged at the stellar system's edge, amidst the great cloud of planetary detritus, the remains of the system's formation, ceaselessly orbiting the main-sequence star in an intricate, almost beautiful dance of gravity, but Tzenaar reminded himself that this was not what he had come for.

These petty worlds were lifeless, the sensors showed that, as did Tzenaar's psychic senses. All save a small, moon-sized monitoring station that was apparently exchanging frantic comm-bursts with Akkad VI. It was time to end that.

Three lance-strikes tore the station apart, in an explosion of superheated hydrogen and metallic debris, which began to float its endless path through the infinite void. There were no survivors, Tzenaar was sure of that.

They proceeded to move at full speed, the daemon-ships following, making sure to destroy everything which remotely looked like it was going to block their way.

Above the planet, the sapphire sphere of Akkad VI, with beautiful greens and browns and blues and sandy yellows, stood a single Mars-class battle-cruiser.

Tzenaar grinned. At last he had a worthy opponent.


	4. Chapter 4: Blood against Black

**MAGISTER – CHAPTER 3**

Tzenaar was tired of such foolishness. The Mars-class battle-cruiser flew in orbit of Akkad VI, intending to stop his assault. That he could not allow.

***

Captain Jannsen of the Mars-class battlecruiser _Emperor's Will _watched as the mighty battleship prepared to fire.

Nothing would stop him, not even death, from protecting this world. The traitors, the heretics that seeked to destroy it would not prevail. That he vowed. That he swore. That he promised.

'The Emperor protects,' he whispered before giving the orders which began the battle.

'FIRE!'

The two behemoths traded broadsides for what seemed like an age, lances, lasers, particle-beams, antimatter charges, conversion beams and fusion blasts sailing through the darkness of space over the immense distance of 50,000 kilometres, shields of the void enabling the two leviathans to continue their seemingly ceaseless battle.

The _Emperor's Will _had the odds against it, outnumbered and outgunned, yet still it continued battling, knowing that to stop would mean its, and the world below's, utter annihilation at the hands of traitors and heretics. The battle continued in the void, as the shields of the battle-cruiser, began to flicker, weakening, for a moment, an instant, allowing a single, terrible lance-strike through.

***

Naval Commissar Lekzius was tired of this. The heretics, the traitors, had attacked in force, three ships, the smaller two seemingly waiting for a sign of weakness.

That was when the lance-strike went through the hull, setting the atmosphere ablaze, tendrils of fire running down the corridors, secondary explosions wrecking a scar through the mighty battlecruiser.

They continued, striking down the shield generators and continuing the devastation, the destruction wrecked upon the mighty battlecruiser. Large sections were rendered open to the void, sucking through the atmosphere of the ship and the crew with it. Those sections were placed under lockdown, the crew left to suffer a most terrible fate.

***

Armsman Flavun raised his naval shotgun, as the shields were down and thus enemies could teleport in.

_'All is dust_,' he heard behind him, like a whisper, as cold steel penetrated his heart and everything went black.

The Rubric Terminators continued the methodical slaughter, massacring anything and everything that stood in their way as they marched to the Command Basilica of the mighty ship.

Combi-bolters fired, shattering doors and reducing living humans to so much fleshy ruin. Blood and remnants of bodies floated in the rapidly-depleting air as the gravity system failed, but the Terminators were unfazed by it.

They continued to march toward the heart of the ship.

***

Captain Janssen stood, his pistol faltering in his hand. He was a scion of the House of Jannsen on the world of Frigius Prima, a proud son of his house, an honourable child of the Imperial Navy.

The door broke. A single Terminator marched through, its footsteps loud and clanging on the metallic floor. Jannsen rushed toward it, firing his bolt pistol, yet nothing happened, even as he drew his power-sword.

He raised it, attempting to stab the foe...

The blade melted into nothingness an inch above the Terminator's armour, as a casual backhand from it sent Jannsen's head flying off its body.

A quick flurry of bolter-shots ended the rest of the commander's lives.

The _Emperor's Will_ had just ceased.

And Tzenaar was uncontested.


End file.
